


Of Organs and Dramatics

by Pale_Blue



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Dan playing the organ, I'm just not over the organ playing, because it was the most dramatic thing ever, but i have no ideas how organs work so apologies if I'm way off, reorchestrated tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pale_Blue/pseuds/Pale_Blue
Summary: “I’m going to play that tonight,” Dan said to Kyle as they stood near the top of the seating section of the venue. “And it’s going to be awesome.”Kyle nervously looked at the singer out of the corner of his eye and wondered if he should point out that one, organs were really hard to play, and two, that the organ looked very old and very expensive and like they should probably go nowhere near it.





	Of Organs and Dramatics

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance for any mistakes, I wrote this in like two hours because I'm very much not over Dan playing a goddamn organ. I'm aware there was probably a whole lot of rehearsing that went into it but I just wanted to write something light-hearted.

“I’m going to play that tonight,” Dan said to Kyle as they stood near the top of the seating section of the venue. “And it’s going to be awesome.”

Kyle nervously looked at the singer out of the corner of his eye and wondered if he should point out that one, organs were really hard to play, and two, that the organ looked very old and very expensive and like they should probably go nowhere near it. He was also confused about Dan’s sudden desire to play a fancy old organ when he was pretty sure he’d never played one.

“Have you played one before?” Kyle asked, sounding slightly more skeptical than he was.

“Yeah!” Dan replied, shuffling back slightly and crossing his arms. “It was awesome.”

“So that’s one time then?”

Dan rolled his eyes at him and then continued looking at the actually kind of gorgeous organ across the room from them as if it contained all the answers to the world’s many problems in its many pipes. The theatre was beautiful, with a high ceiling and rows upon rows of velvet-covered seats curving around to almost behind the stage. The floor remained empty, the seats having been cleared away for the night to allow the standing crowd to dance and get into the performance more than they would when seated. On the stage the violin and cello players were rehearsing, their bows moving with practiced elegance across the strings and sending mournful notes dancing around the empty space. Kyle was struck quite suddenly by a horrifying vision of Dan excitedly bashing out a terribly out of tune version of Glory while everyone in the crowd ran for cover from the heavy droning emitting from the massive organ. He shuddered. Then he imagined having to explain to the people who owned the theatre that they’d managed to break their organ somehow. He shuddered again, more intensely this time.

“Can you tell the guys? I need to go finish something” Dan suddenly asked, already heading towards the stairs on their right with the air of someone who had something on their mind.

“Please tell me that you’re not gonna spend the whole day on the ‘organ’ section of Wikipedia,” Kyle answered anxiously, before reconsidering. “Actually, maybe do….”

He watched Dan walk more quickly down the many steps before giving the organ a hard stare and silently sending a prayer to some higher organ-playing power that Dan was a quick learner when it came to organs and that it wouldn’t be a complete and utter deafening mistake.

* * *

 

It was about an hour before the gig was supposed to start and there was already a large queue outside. Inside the venue the group of musicians was in the ‘calm before the storm’ stage, and they were all in their stage outfits, ready to perform in the beautiful theatre they’d been rehearsing in all day. With one exception.

Dan hadn’t been seen by anyone for about two hours and Kyle had a feeling he was holed up somewhere in one of the many backstage rooms in the venue, reading about the complete history of the organ or something. He hadn’t even appeared to grab a bite to eat earlier, which was a little out of character but not too concerning. Although they had had some wonderful cake which he’d missed out on. As long as he turned up for their show, and for his slot with To Kill A King to do Choices he could keep doing whatever it was he was doing.

It was almost time for Charlie to go on and the chatter of the crowd was increasing in volume at the normal rate. Kyle had a good feeling about tonight. The rehearsals had all gone well, no-one had any concerns, all the equipment had arrived and worked. No-one was ill, which was impressive. Tonight was going to be great.

* * *

 

Dan had decided that Bad Blood required an organ, and the rest of the band had subtly made sure it was as close to the end of the set as it could be so everyone didn’t leave straight away out of sheer terror. They had also all collectively decided that if it was terrible they hadn’t known anything about it and Dan going rogue to play an organ was very much his decision which they had not known anything at all about. Although, as Will had pointed out, there was very little they could do to block out the sound if it was awful. An organ was a loud instrument and this one was _huge_.

An hour and a half later and it was almost time for Bastille to go on.

Dan had turned up just in time for Choices but he’d looked oddly preoccupied. And he’d vanished again the second he’d come off the stage, which was very strange.

Now they were all waiting to go on, excitement palpable in the room. Looking out from the side of the stage Kyle could see that the theatre was now near enough full, and that even the seats near the top were occupied. It felt strange playing in smaller venues after the arenas they’d been playing on their last UK tour but it was a welcome change. They all felt more at home in the smaller venues, Kyle couldn’t help but feel. The arenas had been wonderful, of course, but it hadn’t felt as real as these shows had. It was too surreal staring out over a crowd so vast that it wasn’t possible to make out people who were sitting or standing further back.

Kyle felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see who the owner was. It was Dan, finally back from wherever the hell he’d been for most of the day.

Ready?” he asked Kyle, jumping up and down slightly and fiddling with his in-ear monitors.

“I’m ready for your organ playing” he replied with a smile, earning himself a scowl in response.

“Here’s hoping I’m not completely rubbish.” Dan said, not making eye contact and instead staring out at the crowd. There was still a lot of people, even if it was a smaller venue. Kyle wondered if he was nervous and asked as much.

“No more than usual.” Dan replied before staring up at the organ again.

And then Dick was telling them to go on and even as he did so Kyle suddenly remembered he hadn’t asked what the hell Dan had been doing the whole time.

* * *

The performance itself so far was going incredibly. Having the crowd standing instead of sitting meant there was more energy in the room, which made the whole thing all the more enjoyable. So far nothing had gone wrong other than Dan forgetting the lyrics to bad_news again but that wasn’t exactly a surprise.

Unfortunately, each song brought them closer and closer to Bad Blood and the organ behind them had never looked more menacing.

Two songs to go.

Then one song to go.

Then it was over and they were all walking off the stage for the shortest encore of all time, and before Kyle could even say anything Dan had marched off towards the stairs that led towards the dreaded organ with a determined expression on his face.

Kyle sent his second silent prayer of the evening to the organ gods.

Then he walked back onto the stage with Woody, Will and Charlie and hoped for the best.

Dan took a little longer to get to the organ because he had to shuffle around the seats so there was a moment of awkward silence in which they all watched Dan try to get to the accursed organ as quickly and elegantly as he could. It wasn’t very elegant if Kyle was perfectly honest. But he got there eventually and sat down with his back to the audience and for a dreadful moment Kyle thought he had backed out of playing at the last possible second.

Thankfully he hadn’t. Instead of breaking straight into the song he introduced it to the audience and also pointed out it was only his second time playing the organ. Then he turned and Kyle turned to his keys and hoped against hope their career wasn’t about to sink accompanied by truly terrible organ playing.

The first note droned out and it…wasn’t bad? Neither was the one after, or the one after that and it was as though someone had lifted a giant organ-shaped weight off Kyle’s shoulders. It was all going to be ok. The fact Dan was actually good at playing the organ was also oddly hilarious because the instrument sounded so incredibly dramatic and the red lighting was only making it more extreme.

But the dramatics clearly paid off, because when Dan lifted his fingers from the keys and turned back to the audience there were cheers and clapping and Kyle could see the same relief he’d felt only a few minutes earlier creeping across Dan’s features as well.

After their final song, after they’d said good bye to the crowd and headed backstage Kyle immediately found Dan, wanting to congratulate him on his fabulous organ playing skills but Dan found him first, already talking about the goddamn organ at about a million miles a minute.

“…like it’s kinda close to a keyboard, sort of, so it wasn’t too bad for the first bit, you know, the Bababa bu, bababa bu bit, but then after I got a bit confused on the second bit because there’s more to remember and I had to sing as well and it was really high up, like none of the organs I was reading about were so high up, and it was older as well, than the other ones. And then there was this one light, you know the red one that was just behind the stage? It was shining like right in my face and it was really hard to see and-“

“Dan!” Kyle exclaimed, holding his hand over the singer’s mouth in an attempt to stop him rambling.

“What?”

“Shut up, you played great and you know it.” Dan grinned at that.

“Thanks!”, he said, giving Kyle a short grateful hug. “You know, the venue in London has an organ as well…”

He trailed off, heading out of earshot to give Ralph a hug before they headed off. Kyle stared after him with a dumbfounded expression before sighing and resigning himself to at some point taking part in a tour which would involve all their songs being played on an organ. At least, he thought to himself, that _would_ definitely be something different.


End file.
